The builders are hopeful of completing the country's longest Padma Multipurpose Bridge by June 2022 despite slow progress in work amid the second wave of coronavirus.
The Padma Multipurpose Bridge Project (PMBP) office recently extended the deadline of completing the bridge by another year from June 2021.
Officials said main bridge-building and river training work continued amid limitations like longer time in import and unavailability of experts after the second wave hit Bangladesh in March.
Although the targeted progress in work on the project site could not be maintained, they said, the revised schedule was chalked up taking this into account.
"We revised the work plan before the second wave considering uncertainty in the coronavirus situation. So, we're nearing completion of construction by June 2022," said project director M Shafiqul Islam.
He said activities like timely available of importing items and experts are not possible now due to virus lockdown and restrictions on the movement of people.
Mr Islam, however, said the project site has been free from coronavirus infection for maintaining strict restrictions on the movement of people.
According to the progress report, main bridgework was recorded at 85.5 per cent and river training at 82 per cent in April.
The progress was 85 per cent and 82 per cent respectively in March.
Almost 90-per cent road slabs and 93-per cent of rail slabs were placed by April, the Chinese contractor is yet to install gas line, footpaths, electric line, and fibre optic work.
The project office seeks to do road slab placement work by October and then bituminous and other finishing work with a target to compete all works by March 2022.
But sources said the office faces loss of time for following quarantine procedure in the case of both local and international workers and technicians.
As many experts have left for China since January, according to the PMBP website, only three experts have joined the worksite after taking efforts.
"If one Chinese goes home, he has to take 14-day quarantine for four times before joining the construction work. So, the project work gets delayed," said an official seeking anonymity.
Mr Islam said Padma bridge would be ready for traffic movement in June 2022, adding that the revised schedule has been designed taking all these into consideration.
The Awami League-led government made the move to construct the $3.0-billion rail-rum-road bridge over the river after coming to power.
Although it initially planned to launch the long-awaited bridge by 2014, the building work, however, began in 2016.
Later, the project went through challenges like design faults in several piers leading to delayed progress and missing the completion target several times.
smunima@yahoo.com